The United Nations published a report by its expert panel that supports what the Congolese people have known and been saying for the longest. Now that the world has acknowledged the nature of the 12 year conflict in the Congo, we may finally start to see policy prescriptions that reflect the truth and include what the Congolese have argued for some time now.

The U.N. panel of experts was lead by Jason Stearns and consisted of Dinesh Mahtani, a British finance expert; Mouctar Kokouma Diallo, a Guinea customs experts; Peter Danssaert, a weapons trafficking expert; and Sergio Finardi, a military logistics expert for a nonprofit group in Italy and the U.S. that monitors arms deals.

Some of the highlights from the report include the following:
1. Extensive evidence of high-level communication between the government of Rwanda and the Tutsi rebel group known as the Congress for the Defense of the People.

2. Rwandan soldiers helped bring recruits, some of them children, to Congo’s border to fight in General Nkunda’s rebellion.

3. Congo’s military is collaborating with the FDLR

4. Rwanda has facilitated the supply of military equipment and has sent officers and units

5. Laurent Nkunda’s CNDP has used Rwanda as a rear base for fundraising meetings and bank accounts

Click here to download (PDF) the entire UN report.